I had a very interesting chat with the supervising ranger at Los Encinos State Historic Park where I volunteer. I was talking to him about yesterday's Will Rogers Jazz Age Picnic, and he was saying he was very keen on similar costumed "flash mobs" descending on Los Encinos.

Last month there was a bit of bruhaha over the discovery of two amazingly ugly dead critters who were breathlessly identified in the media as "chupacabras".

The "cooler heads" then quickly moved in and pooh-poohed the idea that the nasty things were the legendary goat suckers. "You poor benighted rednecks. They are not chupacabras" they declared, "they are in fact hairless mangy coyotes".

For something like a decade now, we have had a very nice ragtime tea dance in the Lanterman House in La Canada/Flintridge. Ian Whitcomb has provided the music, and the Locke - Noble Tea Company provided the tea, and 50-60 people have had a very nice afternoon in the ballroom of the 1915 Craftsman house.